Customising Achievements – A coaching perspective

30 July 2019

Coaches on Today’s Plan have a great range of customisation options they can make use of. We have discussed these in previous articles as well as our Coaching Customisation Masterclass video. In this article we will give details on how to use the customisation options that control achievements on the platform, starting with a review of the general achievement settings which we previously outlined here.

Each column of the achievements tab represents the different types of achievements. Coaches can make changes to the following achievement options:

The first icon in each column is the “calculation” option. This turns that specific achievement on or off completely. The next two icons are the “notify athlete” and “notify coach” options which control who gets an inbox notification when an uploaded activity gets one of those achievements.

Adjusting the metric achievements

By default we turn on achievements for every metric. Each metric can be viewed by clicking the zoom icon in the top right, as shown below.

For some athletes it can be overwhelming to view this many achievements if they happen to be triggered on an activity. Also, athletes may not know the meaning of a specific metric (e.g. avg pwr > thresh) and sometimes less significant achievements can hide the importance of the main metrics (e.g. power and/or pace PB’s become less visible). An example of this is shown below.

To change this, you may wish to look through each metric in the list and assess whether you want your athletes to have that metric calculated and then whether you wish them to be notified of that achievement. Below are some examples of metrics commonly turned off by coaches, however each coach and athlete has different needs so these should be assessed on an individual basis:

VO2max- this estimation can be distracting for athletes and they may prefer to focus on peak outputs (pace and power)

Average power > thresh and % time above thresh- these metrics are commonly used by coaches but may not be understood by the athlete

Avg Alt- this can be skewed with short activities completed at altitude, therefore max alt may be preferred

Using notifications to track athletes

The notifications can be used as a tool to keep track of certain athletes. As a coach you may not wish to be notified of every achievement of each athlete (this would quickly fill your inbox!) but you can use achievements notifications to keep a “closer eye” on specific athletes.

Below is an example of two athletes, “Level B” athlete is on the more affordable level of coaching with less feedback required. “Level A” athlete is on the top coaching level requiring more feedback and analysis. This coach has set up achievements so that every bronze, silver and gold achievement Level A athlete gets for peak power, HR and pace results in a notification in the coaches inbox. That means the coach can give timely feedback to the athlete and not miss giving feedback on an important session. Below the coach has turned off all achievement notifications relating to Level B athlete. The athlete will still see those achievements but the coach is not notified of them.

Below is an example of what the Today’s Plan inbox can look like for a coach. Amongst the regular inbox messages, notices, added events, etc can be the achievement notices for the selected athletes.

Using the information and examples in this article you may now wish to look through your athlete achievement settings and see if there are any changes you could make to enhance your coaching workflow or information stream going to your athletes. If you have any further questions about these features feel free to contact our support team at support@todaysplan.com.au.